Old Nature, New Nature: Global Warming and Restoration

There may come a time in the next two centuries when there are no northern hardwood forests, no oak savannas, and no prairies, at least not in the sense we know them today. We all hope this will never happen, but we must admit that it may happen, and, that it may already be unavoidable. This magnitude of climate change would make ecological restoration impossible. We would define a new conservation appropriate for the time, but the opportunity for restoration would have passed us by.